World Politics
The rise of the International System

The birth of the sovereign state is dated at 1648, the concept of sovereignty applied to territories is generally attributed to Grotius in 1625, but if we think of it as something like the birth of a child we’re oversimplifying. The process that gave rise to the modern state started around 1400 when the renaissance took hold, and we didn’t get a centralized state system right away. Germany remained divided into nearly three hundred principalities, though France, Great Britain and Spain became centralized sovereign states rather quickly, even on that path before the official birth of sovereignty. As early as 1215 Great Britain would move to the rudiments of what would become a parliamentary system. And, of course, there were various sorts of Empires, usually claiming some kind of divine right to rule. Italy remained divided between north, south, and states controlled by the Pope. But the principle of sovereignty was codified, and in time the international system built on it to create what we see today: a world of sovereign nation states.

Outside Europe tribal arrangements prevailed in most places, with the area now known as China being governed by dynastic rule that combined the sort of authority the church had with central power of the state. But these are hard to compare, the context was quite different.

Note the bias: The field of international relations, which studies the interaction of sovereign states as fundamental units, rests on European concepts and applications. The reason is that Europe in essence ‘conquered the world’ with colonialism, and thus its ideals became dominant, but there is a strong sense that this is "the way things are meant to be," and thus its assumed that IR concepts and ideas, rooted in the European experience, will be applicable elsewhere. We’ll see later the phenomenon of "failed states" or problems with "development," and these could be less problems with that state, but rather problems in the way European based ideals and concepts have been forced upon other cultures and societies.

Sovereignty originally still came from God, but rather than being exercised solely by the Church, the Church could designate "sovereigns" – Monarchs or Nobility who exercised control over a piece of territory. In practice, the church would simply follow the political realities, but it did allow leaders to maintain the claim they ruled by devine right. This gave legitimacy to rule, though in the Holy Roman Empire the mesh of customary agreements still were in tact. The change was enough to push the Hapsburgs, under Maria Theresa (1740-1780) to form what was a powerful family with varied territorial claims to an actual empire called Austria, encompassing 11 ethnic groups. As Prussia rose (in what would be the east of Germany), the rise of competing interests and what looks like power politics emerged, particularly in the way Prussia, Russia and Austria divided up and eliminated Poland.

But change was coming. In Great Britain in the early 18^th century power shifted to the Parliament from the Monarch. Commerce was growing, and the rise of capitalism was leading to the development of a middle class. This middle class did not believe that political power was given to certain families by God, and instead supported the notion of popular sovereignty: sovereignty should come from the people, not God. Great Britain gradually moved in this direction, becoming, gradually, a democracy. A similar process was inherited by its breakaway colony, the United States. Popular sovereignty seemed a rational, middle class notion of power being shifted to the people, with rule of law providing legitimacy.

Yet Great Britain was an island, and the US far from the centers of power. On the continent, it was far more difficult.

Consider Maria Theresa’s successor in Austria, Joseph II. He was a believer in pure reason. Austria held together its multi-ethnic empire with various deals to the nobility that kept ethnic differences becoming a point of contention. Joseph II didn’t believe in nationalism, special privileges for the nobility, or probably even religion. He did away with privileges for nobility, for conformity’s sake made German the national religion, and thus ignited a revolt. The nobility and publics "discovered" nationalism of a sort (after Napoleon, as we’ll see, it became what we now recognize as modern nationalism), and his death in 1790 was seen as a "gift" to Austria, as it allowed a conservative, traditional force to rule again.

Austria’s experience showed that the rising enlightenment ideals were a threat to order and stability in a world defined by traditional conservative authoritarian rule. Without the gradualism enjoyed by the British and Americans (in large part due to their geographical isolation), there was going to be a clash between old ideas and the rise of modernism and popular sovereignty. But if Austria’s case was telling, an event the year before Joseph’s death was most important.

1789: The French Revolution: The French revolution was a result of decades of absolutist rule by the Monarch which left the French people in poverty and the nation itself bankrupt. France had also been the center of enlightenment thinking, which essentially meant that reason and rationality should guide practice, rather than culture and tradition. It was not reasonable to have monarchical rule, or rights/privileges for the nobility.

So when the revolutionaries overthrew the absolutist monarchy, progressives were generally happy, reason was on the march, and that would bring change for the better!

One British thinker, Edmund Burke didn’t think so. Burke's emphasis was the French revolution.  In that case the desire to develop a perfect rationally planned society led not only to failure, but the rise of modern terrorism in the policies of Robespierre.  Of course, Burke wasn't writing about those events, he wrote before things went sour in France, and accurately predicted the kind of turmoil that would ensue. Burke essentially noted that societies function best when the government matches the culture and traditions of that society.  Culture and tradition hold a society together; challenge that, and things fall apart. 

The problem with reason as a guide is that reason is not a path to truth. Reason can, depending on your assumptions and core beliefs, lead you to a variety of conclusions about what the best system is. That led Pol Pot, that led the world’s first modern terrorist, Robespierre to use terror to try to enforce the ideals of the French revolution. This led to chaos, intervention by other European powers, and finally the rise to power of a general who was victorious in war, and promised the French people to not only end their chaos, but fulfill the ideals of the revolution.

Napoleon Bonaparte I: Rose to power in what’s now called Bonapartism: When things get chaotic and insecure, people will rally around someone who promises to fix things and set things right, even to the point of giving up freedoms and their own interests. The country rallied behind Napoleon. He had a different notion of popular sovereignty than the British and Americans. When the Pope came to crown him emperor, he grabbed the crown from the Pope and put it on himself, symbolically showing that the power came not from the Pope, but the French people. In a plebiscite he was chosen as Emperor and he believed that as long as he kept the support of the people, he was doing the general will, and that meant he was the personification of French popular sovereignty.

He was also the first one to really recognize the power of modern NATIONALISM

Napoleon held power and achieve goals on the basis of emotional and material support from the people. He was not acting on his own authority, but for the glory of France and the French. The first time mass appeal was used, building from the mass action of the French revolution. He used symbols like the flag, the idea of French pride and strength, and the emotional connection of people with the state to gain and expand power. He told the French that they were the greatest cultural in Europe, and their revolutionary ideas need to be spread across the continent. It was for the good of the rest of Europe that France would conquer, he claimed.

Nationalism would be the driving force behind most wars in the coming centuries, more of a force than religion. Using the power of nationalism, Napoleon’s France conquered the European continent (a war which benefited the US, by the way. Napoleon didn’t want to risk having to fight a war both in Europe and in the new world, and he needed to raise funds to finance his campaigns. So he sold a huge chunk of North America to the United States: the Louisiana Purchase).

As Napoleon conquered Europe, he organized the continent better and more efficiently. The over 300 German principalities were consolidated into 39, all loosely coalesced into a confederation. By talking about French glory, he awakened the idea of nationalism within these areas while hastening the centralization of their systems. In the Hapsburg lands, the nascent nationalism awakened by Joseph II took a turn for what now passes for ethnic pride and separatism by following the example of French nationalism and its emphasis on culture, symbols and language.

Nationalism is likely one of the most dangerous aspects of this system, even if sometimes it seems very good at bringing people together to work to solve common problems (patriotism is a form of nationalism).

The rest of Europe was aghast: Napoleon was a threat to all the monarchs of Europe, as was the French revolution. When the French monarchy had been overthrown, royalty and nobility were guillotined, killed, acts of regicide which shocked the rest of Europe. To them, the danger was clear: Napoleon represented popular sovereignty and a revolutionary spirit. It was chaotic, would lead to war and emotionalist politics, and was dangerous. They adopted a philosophy of conservatism which stressed the need to maintain monarchies, the power of tradition and religion (in France at the time of the revolution they did things like hurl dirt into the Notre Dame cathedral to demonstrate their disdain for religion), and above all elite rule and traditional sovereignty.

In 1814, after Napoleon’s defeat, the Congress of Vienna was convened, hosted by the Austrians and their new Foreign Minister Clemens von Metternich. It would run from September 1814 to June 1815, and lead to an agreement that the ideals of the French revolution – popular sovereignty, liberalism, reason over tradition, etc. – were dangerous to stability and order. Conservative traditions of monarchical rule would dominate. The Austrians had a strong need for this – after Joseph II and with the rise of nascent nationalisms in its empire, they feared change the most, and realized their Hapsburg monarchy could not long survive if modernism triumphed. Most of the leaders of Europe agreed, and the British – while already well along the path of modernization – figured that Europe’s culture and needs were different.

They couldn’t simply remake the old Holy Roman Empire though – Napoleon’s war had made all the myriad of arrangements virtually impossible to resurrect. Instead, it was accepted that the over 300 principalities were now only 39, with Prussia the largest. Austria wanted to keep the German states divided, so it could act as its protector. Prussia was thus given land in Rhein region rather than on its borders as war gains, something that irritated the Prussians. Yet ultimately this would lead Prussia to more power as they early on pushed for a Zollverein or customs union (1838) to enhance trade between the German states, and later the industrial revolution would center in the coal rich areas gained by Prussia, both providing it wealth and industrial goods, and a motive to unify. But that would be later. The Congress reconstituted a French monarchy, and the states of Europe agreed that disputes could be settled diplomatically, with war not an option.

To be sure, this wasn’t idealist: part of the bargain was that military strength would figure in to the diplomatic maneuvers. The stronger your military, the better your diplomatic position. But as long as people didn’t break the rules – the most fundamental being not to try to alter the basic confines of the system – diplomacy could yield results to disputes.

This was called the Concert of Europe or the Metternich system. It is this era which provides the basis for much of the work on political realism, as they see it as the standard of how politics should be. And it worked. With minor and brief exceptions, Europe was at peace until 1914.

BALANCE OF POWER - 5 states, Britain balanced

The logic: states have real interests, and in a world with no central authority, power determines who achieves their interests. Like in nature, the state system would be stable and peaceful if power was balanced between states or alliance systems. If one state got too large or powerful, it may desire to expand. Other states would come together to counter that state’s power.

ALLIANCES - shifting alliances met to keep the peace. Alliances to counter potentially dangerous countries emerged naturally, as states tried to increase security by making deals with other states. Britain tended to remain aloof from permanent alliances, and was often called the ‘holder of the balance’ because it could side with whomever was weaker in order to aviod one side getting too powerful and being tempted to expand.

DIPLOMACY/CONCERT OF EUROPE (common diplomatic culture)

Most importantly, the states of Europe were in agreement that war and conflict would be counter productive, and likely promote more things like the French revolution. The goal would be to use diplomacy to peacefully settle disputes, even as military mite stood behind the diplomats. Peace through strength. It worked.

1848: another French revolution, this time leading ultimately to a new Emperor, Napoleon III, the nephew of Napoleon I. Other democratic and nationalist revolts in 1848 were put down, but one thing started to seem clear as the industrial revolution spread. The conservative ideology of folk like Metternich was doomed in the long run, societal changes were pushing forward ideals of democracy, individual rights, nationalism and even the prospect of socialist revolution. Austria almost collapsed after the 1848 revolts, but managed to pit ethnic group against ethnic group, and gave the Hungarians special rights (the Austro-Hungarian Empire). Still this was a sign that conservatism upon which the system was based was being contradicted by social change that increasing in scope and pace.

Still, despite the Crimean war in the 1850's (a rather stupid war full of shoddy generalship), the system continued to function, though not as smoothly. Then between 1860 and 1870 everything started to fall apart.

TWO LEADERS: Count Cavour of Italy, and Otto von Bismarck of Germany.

Cavour -- unified Italy. Piedmont was an Italian province, and Cavour fought Austria (with French assistance, thanks to Napoleon III) in order to get agreements that step by step unified Italy. The new Italian state was formed by 1865, originally with Florence as the capital, and then the Pope acquiesced and Rome joined in 1871 (though the Vatican remained a separate state, currently the only one still using traditional sovereignty, with the Pope the absolute sovereign).

Bismarck, a member of the Prussian nobility, was an arch conservative, and in fact had undercut efforts in 1848 to create a United States of Germany which was to have been democratic and federal. He wanted instead to unify all of Germany under the King of Prussia, who would become the first German Emperor.

But the Austrians and French were determined to stop that, and they interfered in German affairs with deals and alliances with many of the small German statelets. Bismarck goaded Austria into a war with Denmark over the provinces of Schleswig and Holstein (to supposedly enforce rightful ownership). When Prussia blocked free Austrian access to the territories, the Austrians decided to teach Prussia a lesson – after all, Austria was the major power, Prussia just one of the small German states. But in 1866 in the Austro-Prussian war Austria was defeated – quickly and easily by the well trained high tech Prussian military. Prussia took no territory, but got Austria to agree to butt out of Prussia’s efforts to unify the German states.

Bismarck wanted a war with France as well, but a crisis over the Spanish monarchy seemed to be resolved peacefully between Napoleon III and King Wilhelm, distressing Bismarck greatly. He then leaked the Ems telegraph (Bad Ems was where the two leaders had met) which made it appear Wilhelm had insulted Napoleon and France. The French were angry and demanded Prussia be taught a lesson, so Napoleon III declared war on Prussia, and again the Prussian military won easily.

The Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars created the illusion that war would be quick in the modern era. (They ignored America’s civil war, which showed that it need not be that way!) There were also blatantly political wars, designed solely to unite Germany and not take extra land. Bismarck reportedly threatened suicide when the generals wanted to annex parts of Austria, and perhaps his biggest error was to give in to the Generals after the Franco-Prussian war to annex Alsace and Lorraine, two French provences on the border with Germany.

Note: Bismarck could correctly claim Prussia was not the aggressor in either conflict. He wanted war and goaded the other states into war, but they struck first. Then gained Prussia support, even as it violated the fundamentals of the Metternich system. Also note the impact of public opinion – by the Metternich system standards, diplomats should run things, public opinion should be irrelevant. But it wasn’t, it was the reason the French went to war. The Metternich system’s foundations were crumbling.

In 1871 the Second Reich was proclaimed in the hall of mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, and Germany was unified.